Thomas’s London Day Schools

Branding, messaging and digital transformation for one of the UK’s most prestigious independent schools

The Thomas’s family of schools is based in the heart of London, with leading schools in Battersea, Clapham, Fulham and Kensington.

Thomas's appointed JBI to support with the evolution of it's digital branding and messaging and key stakeholders made it a priority to have a rebranded website launched in time for the schools’ 50th anniversary.

As a representation of one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the country, the new website needed to set Thomas’s apart from its competitors, showcasing the schools’ unique approach and providing an optimised experience for all of its key users.

The Thomas’s team was also looking to evolve the schools’ brand and messaging with the new website, with a keener focus on the educational journey that Thomas’s students take.

Reshaping the Thomas’s brand with new, value-driven messaging based on extensive stakeholder research

Thomas’s Schools take a unique approach to education, developing two critical skills in particular, thinking and questioning, while emphasising the importance of being kind and independent.

The schools’ key stakeholders did not feel that their previous website or messaging represented these values, and so a crucial component of the planning phase was to shape Thomas’s digital brand and key messaging.

JBi’s marketing team led interactive workshops with Thomas’s key stakeholders, identifying the schools’ key values, defining their USPs and brainstorming potential visual directions before creating a series of initial concepts for the Thomas’s team to review.

Once Thomas’s had signed off on their favourite concept, a further workshop was held to align on the brand’s intrinsics and define Thomas’s visual language.

This culminated in the creation of Thomas’s new brand message: Be Kind, Be Thomas’s.

The JBi design team created a number of visual concepts for Thomas’s key stakeholders to choose from

The Thomas’s team loved the idea for a dynamic, horizontal scrolling homepage, which tied in nicely with the school’s new messaging by portraying the educational journey that Thomas’s students take.

The concept was signed off and work began on building it into the final designs.

We also created a collection of custom icons for the new website, which can be seen below.

Optimising the admissions journey with a bespoke and interactive admissions calculator for parents

Thomas’s Schools receive thousands of online applications every year and expect a high level of traffic in short bursts to this area of the site, so we took particular care to ensure that it could maintain a high performance level and that it was hosted on a secure and robust environment.

Thomas’s is an iconic brand and we are very proud to have been part of such an exciting period in its growth. We loved getting to know Thomas’s hard working team and look forward to working with them again on future projects.

Thomas’s key stakeholders are delighted with the new website, which was released in time for the new intake of applications and has been received well by students, parents and staff alike.

We recorded an interview with Thomas's Director of Marketing, Kate Thomas to discuss her experiences of working with JBi.

In three months, the website has achieved the following: